Mean streets

POLLUTION from California's city streets and suburban lawns is a greater threat than effluent from factories or sewage plants, says a report released last week by The Lindsay Museum in Walnut Creek, California.

The authors say new ways to deal with city run-off must be found to tackie the pollution.

In the past, efforts to clean up polluted water have focused on the smelly effluent from sewage plants and toxic waste pouring into rivers from factories. Real progress has been made in cleaning up these pollutants, say the researchers. Now they report up to 70 per cent of the chemicals found in San Francisco Bay come from everyday activities of ordinary people.

Such pollutants include oil from leaky cars and copper-laden dust from their brake pads as well as garden fertilisers and pesticides. These are washed into storm drains untreated and eventually end up in rivers and the ocean.

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